As I was walking down Church Hill today the potential of our nation torpedoed toward and then past me in the form of a vigorous 8 year-old girl. Her feet pounded the pavement, her wide golden eyes locked with mine, and then she was gone. “Who knows?” I thought. “Maybe that girl will do humankind […]

I absolutely love thinking and learning about schools and students and I assume a lot of other teachers do too. Yet in my experience as a teacher I rarely have an opportunity to sit down in the context of my job with other equally charged teachers and talk and plan new programs and new curriculum and new approaches to […]

I decided to see what the elite are saying about the Common Core. After all, when it comes to education, the wealthy usually manage to get the best for their children. Do they like the Common Core? Are they choosing schools that reflect an embrace of the standards-based movement? I looked at the mission statements […]

Dysfunction on a school board or in a superintendent’s office or at the state level impacts what goes on in the classroom, but the quality of teachers is what matters most, and the principal of a school is charged with ensuring that quality. Sometimes it seems that a principal’s load is simply too great to […]

Many public school teachers work in environments that hinder them from doing their best to meet the needs of individual students in their classrooms. A lot of teachers find this frustrating, and many talk of leaving the profession. Hype from the media and from politicians could easily make the public think the problems with our […]

What should schools be teaching? What is fundamental to the skill set of an educated person? According to the Framework for 21st Century Learning, created by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills with the encouragement of the U.S. Department of Education, among skills at the center of the curriculum should be : Critical thinking. Communication. Collaboration. Creativity. I think […]

Once again I find myself thinking about why teachers leave the profession. This week I am in Waterville, Maine, attending an institute on Maine School Law. I am deeply impressed with the caliber of the teachers I am with, which is often the case when I spend time pursuing further training, especially during vacation periods, […]

Kathreen Harrison

Kathreen Harrison is a public school teacher in Maine. She has a master’s degree from Bank Street College of Education and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College. She has worked in a variety of schools in New York and Maine in a number of capacities – French teacher, gifted and talented teacher, elementary school teacher, and curriculum coordinator for island schools. She has lived in Maine for 20 years and has a particular interest in school reform.